November update

Construction

Brett has been working construction in Santa Rosa de la Palmera, where we attend church. The building is actually intended to be a Christian education building, but in the meantime, will act as a parsonage for the pastor and his family. The family has been living in the church for 9 months, waiting for their home to be completed. Brett felt called to help pull this project along, and hopefully they will be in by Christmas.

Marion´s Birthday

Marion celebrated his 90th birthday on November 15. His 2 kids, Stanley and Paula came to visit from the states for his big bday. Paula celebrated her birthday on the same day, so Mary threw a party for them both.










Turkey Day

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Mary, Marion, Peggy, Steve, Juanita, Pedro, Beto and Kimberly. Mary ordered a turkey via Steve from San Josè, and we contributed our favorite greasy American dishes. Brooke made Asparagus casserole and Sweet Potato Poon with camote, since Costa Rica doesn`t have the same sweet potato as we have in the US.












Women´s Cross Stitch Class

Brooke hosted a 3 week cross stitch class for the ladies in Linda Vista this month. The Linda Vista elementary school was nice to open their dining hall for us. About 10 women participated, and some brought their kids, so I also taught about 5 kids. Right before the class started, Sandra Schueller who designs cross stitch patterns, www.joyfulexpressions.us, contacted me via Mary (since I didn`t have our email address posted at that point). She happened to stumble upon our blog and found out about the cross stitch classes I was teaching, so she offered to donate some of her designs. She has patterns with Bible verses in Spanish, so it was a blessing to be able to witness through the art of cross stitch.










Santa Rosa Youth Group

The kids here are dancing to some crazy Christian song called ¨Loco Coco.¨ Every week we are connecting more and more with the youth in Santa Rosa, mainly since their trust in us is growing. As we have mentioned before, working with the youth is extremely challenging for us. We feel we have to sneak gospel lessons in via clever games because when we attempt to have a bible study discussion, it´s like pulling teeth trying to get them interested. Continued prayer is needed here because we often go back and forth as to whether we really feel called in this area. Sometimes we think leading the youth should be a mniistry for one of the local members of the church. Other times we realize that God is using this experience to change us for the better.











Kid´s Cross Stitch

Brooke also taught a cross stitch class to the kids in Linda Vista school. After they finish their exams, they have to continue to go to school, but rather than having regular classes, they have ¨talleres¨or ¨workshops¨











Preschool

Brooke, was also blessed with the opportunity to teach a preschool class. It started with a request from Juanita, the cook from the camp, to teach her son, Beto. It felt like a calling because in the same week, I received requests from 2 other parents, both from families in 2 different communities. I plan on continuing the class after Christmas.

September Update

The last part of August and the first days of September started out with what felt like a spiritual attack, but through prayer, yours and ours, God showed us a way back into the light. I was experiencing a combination of homesickness and fear. Brett was experiencing some frustration rooted in culture shock, that had been building up since we arrived. All that began to change with events in the weeks that followed. We were in the USA for about 3 weeks, primarily to visit a Missions’ Fair at one of our supporting churches, Trinity UMC in Gulfport, MS. Below is a recap on what we’d been doing before we left to go home.

Our friend Amanda visited us...


The last week in August, our friend Amanda moved to Costa Rica to attend the Spanish Language Institute, where Steve Semler (one of our co-workers), and I learned Spanish. Amanda stayed with us the week before her classes started. Since she had been leading the youth at Rockville Presbyterian Church in South Carolina, she was very effective in assisting us with the youth we work with at Santa Rosa. She also gave us ideas for our English classes and encouragement for the work we are doing.

Papa Russell passed away...

Shortly after we dropped Amanda off in San Jose for, Mary’s father, Mark Russell, passed away. He had come to live with Mary and Marion over the past several years, and we were blessed to have the opportunity spend time with him over these past several months of working at the camp. He was a Methodist pastor, but he liked to tell people that his claim to fame was that he was in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. This was because wherever he was pastor, no member of his congregation ever died during his tenure. His other accomplishment of which he was quite proud was that he wrote the state song for Pennsylvania. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and was a man of great faith. Up until the week before he died, he was very clever in how he convinced people to stick around a little longer to visit with him. He’d say, “wait a minute, wait just a minute…are your parents still livin'?” or “wait a minute, wait just a minute…do you know who I am?” We will miss him greatly, and we are confident he is resting in Heaven.

Working in the Shop...

After spending several months cleaning up the shop, Brett was able to crank out some projects. He finished the first section of the cabinets for the kitchen in Jerry Russell’s house where we have been living. He built a door to replace a rotting one in Cabin 3. He also re-built the Methodist cross and flame on the chapel that had deteriorated due to years of exposure to the elements. He also started one of the cabinets for the kitchen in the guesthouse.

Architecture...

As part of our effort to assist the churches in the northern zone with the upgrades required to bring their buildings up to code, we measured the church at Guatuso and the multipurpose building in El Mirador, and drew them up in CAD. We also measured the church in El Molino, to help both with the code upgrade, but also to help them think of different ways to expand their worship space. El Molino is extremely hot, and the current building was not designed to alleviate the heat. Additionally the congregation has expanded to about 100 members, who now have to stand up in the back and outside to hear the sermon on Sundays. El Molino is a blip on the map, 20 minutes from Volcano Arenal, so it’s quite amazing that the church is one of the largest congregations in the northern zone. As part of new regulations in the building code, all the churches are required to present a drawing of their worship space to demonstrate an exit plan in cases of emergency. The deadline for bringing their buildings up to code, including having exit doors that swing outward, sound mitigation, and handicap accessible restrooms and walkways, is June of next year. If the churches are to avoid the risk of being closed they will need to demonstrate that they are making progress in making these changes. Please help us pray that these churches would find the financial means to meet the new code requirements.

Tutoring...
One of the students that we’d been tutoring, Adiel, unfortunately dropped out of colegio this month. This was his second year in the seventh grade, and despite our working with for several months, he just couldn’t seem to make it. Adiel had a government scholarship, where he received about $60 a semester for transportation, uniforms, and books. Through him, we learned that any child in Costa Rica could have access to this kind of scholarship, no matter what their grades are. It just required that parents be persistent in fighting for their child’s needs. In Adiel, we learned that parental support isn’t the only thing necessary for a child’s success in school, because he came from what appeared to be a very loving and supportive family. His older brother didn’t continue in school, and has a good job as a mechanic. His parents also didn’t complete high school. We imagine it must be difficult to be motivated to study when the people in your family are able to survive without a high school education.
One of our other students, Katheryn, unfortunately lost her scholarship due to a failing Math grade. After coming back to Costa Rica in November, we learned the scholarship program in Linda Vista is likely going to die out soon. Their only financial support is from the community itself, as one of the goals of the CRM is to allow communities and churches to be self sustaining. The issue is that the community is not motivated to do the work required to get the funding necessary. Perhaps it’s the same issue in getting their kids motivated to stay in school. I am continuing to work with Katheryn because she wants to succeed in school. She is facing some issues at home that contribute to her struggles in academics, but I believe she has the self-drive and faith in Christ to get her through it.
Some exciting news to report on the tutoring front, is that my friend, Eylin, whom I befriended on my first short term mission trip to Costa Rica, is going to go back to school by way of a homeschooling program. The Ministry of Education, in an effort to encourage adults who couldn’t continue in their education, has a program called “Maestro en Casa,” that allows students to study material at home, and take a series of tests in order to receive their High School Diploma. Eylin is now 15 years old, which is the minimum age necessary to matriculate in the program. After spending some time with her through the sewing course and the girls’ movie night, which I organized a few months back, she told me she was ready to go back to school. One of her cousins was participating in a study-at-home program, so she was interested in doing the same. I will be attempting to coach her through the program with tutoring.
Please pray for all our tutoring efforts, for all the kids we are working with now, and have worked with in the past, and for the Lord’s wisdom in how to present education to them in a way they understand. Mostly we pray that we would be able to communicate beyond cultural barriers, and to show Christ’s love to all He places in our lives.

Youth Group…

Friday evenings and Sunday mornings, we lead the youth at the church we attend in Santa Rosa de la Palmera. Friday evenings is usually a more active evening of games and fellowship with prayer and a short bible lesson. The kids are mostly middle school aged, and do not have parents that are members. We made pizza one week while studying the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. Another week we roasted marshmellows and sang songs around a camp fire, despite the warm Costa Rican climate. Another week we prayed for each of the youth and asked for the Lord to give a verse particular to every child.
On Sundays the age demographic is a little older, so we are able to have a more in-depth bible discussion. The month of September, they acted out the story of Ruth, while discussing the application of the story in their daily lives.
We are honestly frustrated in trying to get the youth to pay attention during our meetings, as they mostly want to flirt with the opposite sex or play games. We could use some prayer in how to reach out to the youth we’re working with.

Cross stitch…

I was training a small group of women in cross stitch, so as to allow them to teach others in a larger class. Hopefully a combination cross stitch/Bible study will start in November in Linda Vista, with the help of Peggy, another North American that works at the camp, and the women I trained. Please help us pray for a location to meet, and for active leadership from the women I trained, and that the women in the community would find a deeper relationship to Christ through our meetings.

English

At the Linda Vista School, I was blessed with some assistance in teaching English from some volunteers from Germany and Russia. They came just when I was about to have a nervous breakdown, from dealing with discipline issues in the classes. We each taught a separate class, and assisted the one in charge in each class. I taught 4th grade, Olga, from Russia, taught 5th grade, and Charlotte, from Germany, taught 6th grade. I am sad they will no longer be teaching when I return in November, but it was a blessing to have them while they were here.
I am still teaching a small group of women in Linda Vista on Tuesday evenings. These lessons have been more like meetings with friends, rather than classes. I have gotten to know these women quite well, so our classes are fun and filled with laugher, food, talking, and prayer. The women were so kind to throw me a surprise party for my 30th birthday.

Brett and I were team teaching some workers at the camp and some residents from El Mirador on Monday evenings. There are new people that come and go constantly, which makes it difficult ot flow from one class to the next, but they are always eager to learn. When we start again in November, we will meet on a different night of the week, and will hopefully have more workers from the camp participating.
While at home in the US, I ordered some more ESL books, to help us in teaching Bible-based English classes. If any of you could recommend more sources like this, please pass on the names to us. We always start or end in prayer, or we have our students translate a Bible verse, but it is difficult in knowing how to evangelize while teaching English. We believe forming relationships is the first step in teaching Christ, but we often struggle in knowing the right balance for evangelizing. Your advice and prayers for this English ministry are most appreciated as well.

July and August

(the photos above from top to bottom are 1. Our friends from Guatuso that invited us to a birthday party for their 18 year old sister, Gabi 2. Brett at the party getting pinched by a baby 3. Brooke with Katherine, Nicole and Kattiana. We celebrated Katherine´s birthday at the zoo. She is one of the students we tutor.)

July was a busy month with 3 straight weeks of teams from the states. The teams represented Wetumpka, AL; Richmond Hill, GA; Metter, GA; and Midland, TX. Three of the groups worked on construction projects which included the new cabin at the camp, Pedro´s house across the street from the camp, and the parsonage/education bldg at the church in Santa Rosa. They also led Vacation Bible Schools in El Mirador and Santa Rosa. The team from Texas had a dual dentist/vision clinic near El Mirador.

In addition to helping translate for the teams, we have continued to tutor and teach English. We thought we picked up another student last week, a girl named Fabiana who dropped out of the 8th grade a few weeks ago due to personal family problems. She told us that she wanted to continue to study while not in school, in hope of returning next year. We have scheduled two tutoring sessions with her, but she did not show up to either one. This is an example of cultural passivity that is extremely hard to understand. Rather than being honest and telling people no, we have run into several occasions where Costa Ricans say they will show up to a meeting we have scheduled, but then just not show up. Needless to say, Fabiana needs prayer, and we need patience.

We also picked up more English classes. One is on Saturday afternoon in Linda Vista with two boys in the 9th and 10th grades, Diego and Marvin. Another class is to some of the workers at the camp and some folks from El Mirador. Brett and I tag team on this class, so we can have an advanced and beginner class at the same time. We always try and present the Gospel in all our English classes, but we are still learning how to make the lesson an interactive discussion. Bible studies are not too common here, in that, church participation involves service and sitting in pews, not necessarily questioning and probing Biblical concepts. This is another cultural adjustment which is hard to overcome. We feel like we’d like to be able to encourage people to have an opinion and be heard, and that it’s okay to ask questions. At the same time, we wonder how much of this struggle is God trying to get us to change, rather than trying to change the culture around us?

This week I (Brooke) started teaching English classes to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in Linda Vista. While the majority of the students listen well and participate in class, every class has a handful of mischievous trouble makers that try to cause complete chaos and disruption. Such an event occurred in the 5th grade class on Wednesday. A student named Luis Manuel, who recently moved into the community to the boy’s orphanage decided it would be funny to call me some derogatory names he had learned in English. I thus asked him to step outside for 5 minutes, but he continued to disrupt the class from outside. While the 5th grade teacher was in the class with me, he has yet to show any ability to help me with discipline, so I felt quite alone in my efforts. I decided I needed to talk to the directors at the orphanage about this problem child. I learned he just arrived to the orphanage 15 days ago, and he was living in another orphanage in Quesada previously. They had to move him because he was getting into too many fights with the boys there. It was hard to understand everything the directors said in their rapid-fire Spanish dialect, but it sounded like his parents couldn’t handle his anger, so they gave him up. This child definitely has reason to be angry, but only God knows what he needs to overcome these struggles. It’s moments like these that I feel unequipped, and I have a desire to receive further training in social work or counselling. At the same time, I know that in the old days, disciples received “on the job training,” usually while working with a more experienced teacher. I struggle with the faith to know that Christ will provide me with the words I need in the moment, but at the same time I know He has already assisted me in every situation in which He places me. Matthew 10:19 gave me some encouragement on this matter:

¨...do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.¨

The mission field can be a very lonely experience, when I feel like I don’t have a teacher to guide me through the hardships. Though I am learning to understand and feel Christ’s presence within me, dwelling within my heart. We are all living, breathing, moving temples of God. I have recently been reading verses that speak of God within us. Such as Ezekiel 36: 27, “ I will put my Spirit within you,” or Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts.” Or 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells within you?” No matter how much scholastic training we might have, it will always be God that gets us through the situations which school could never teach us.

We are now the youth directors for our church in Santa Rosa as well. We lead a Friday evening program and Sunday School to a group ranging in age from 10 to 18. We think the kids we are working with have never been in a bible study where they have had to give their opinion and actively participate in discussions, so it´s like pulling teeth trying to get anything out of them. Last week we decided that everyone was going to bring a verse or pick a theme to present on Sunday, in an effort to get them actively searching for the God’s presence in their life. We found this worked quite well. Although not everybody did their homework, we had sufficient participation from at least two members of the Sunday School class. One of the girls in the class, Karla, is hearing impaired, so it has been a challenge for us to know how to include her in the discussion. Her sister, Karen, knows sign language, but is apparently going through a rebellious stage where she doesn’t want to help Karla. Karla left the class crying one Sunday out of frustration for not understanding. Please pray for both of them, that they would be able to mend their sibling rivalry, and that Christ would bless Karla with the clarity to understand and communicate in her life.

I (Brett) am still cleaning up around the shop. It´s taking a long time due to the initial lack of organization and the limited space in which literally a life time of wood, unfinished projects, and countless forgotten appliances have accumulated over the years. Some of the wood either is termite-eaten, dry rotted, or contains rusted fasteners. All of it needs sorting and culling so that we retain the pieces that have some use. As I have been going through the various shelves I have found that many of the shelves are, in fact, completely hollow, having themselves been eaten through with termites. I haven’t taken on an apprentice yet because I still feel the shop isn’t safe for a teenager to learn in. In addition to all the clean up I am going to be starting the fabrication of about 20 bunk beds for the new cabin, and hopefully some new cabinets for the kitchen of the guest house at the camp and maybe even kitchen cabinets for our house near the camp. Your prayers for this part of our mission certainly are appreciated, as it has been a struggle to resist wanting the dynamic of the shop and its use to change over night. Slowly but surely (‘poco y poco’ is what they say here). My OCD tendencies get the better of me sometimes, and explaining what I am trying to do in the shop, with its organization often seems to fall on deaf ears. I have to remind myself sometimes that it’s just a shop.
We are also going to start using our architectural backgrounds to help draw some of the existing Methodist churches in the Northern Zone of Costa Rica. The Ministry of Health has developed additional regulations in the building code, and is in the process of ensuring that public buildings follow these new guidelines in addition to existing code. Since many churches that have been built over the years were not built to code, and there is no “grandfather clause” there are a lot of changes to be made. Many churches have to add handicap bathrooms and ramps and entrances wide enough for access. Protestant churches here have been subject to closings and noise violations, infractions similar to those received by bars and night clubs, due to the loud P.A. systems, loud music, and loud preaching. Part of the code involves changing the windows in the churches to solid plate glass, and adding sound barriers to the walls, in order to keep the noise inside. This consequently means that churches are now going to need air conditioning, that is, if they don´t want anyone dying of a heatstroke during service. While all of these regulations and measures are necessary for the health and safety of the church members and their neighbors, there is a fear that many of the churches are going to have to shut down since they don´t have the financial backing to meet all the requirements. Please pray that the Lord will provide them with the financial means to remain open.

We will be heading to the US in October to participate in a Missions Fare at one of our supporting churches, Trinity United Methodist in Gulfport, MS. We will also visit our families and friends in SC and NC, since we found it is more economical to fly via Spirit Air to Myrtle Beach, and then drive to MS.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support.

Blessings to you all,
Love,
Brooke and Brett

vision team from abilene

We just said goodbye to a group of thirteen from Abilene, TX that worked in Missions in Vision Clinics and VBS this past week. We worked for two days at a home in Caporal de Aguas Zarcas, about 15 minutes from the camp. The next two days we worked in La Salon de las Delicias de Aguas Zarcas, a bit further down the road towards Pital.
Half the team worked with the kids in Vacation Bible School. Two of the girls that worked in VBS, Min Ju and Lauren, were both musicians, so they worked with some of the kids to offer piano and guitar lessons. Several kids that Brett and I have been working with tell us they wanted to learn piano and guitar. It’s quite rare to find people that offer music lessons in the small villages here. If children can make it to high school, they have opportunities to learn how to play a recorder or join the high school band. It was a blessing to have music lessons offered to children in elementary school. When they weren’t giving music lessons or singing, they decorated and made foam visors or played kazoos that were handed out.
The other half of the team worked in the vision clinic. First, there was a registration table, where Brett helped translate and fill in forms because many patients couldn’t read or write. Some of the pastors and congregation from the church in Pital helped with communication with the more “rural” Spanish speakers. When Brett and I come across rural folks with Spanish dialects so strong, we often can’t decipher what is being said. The patients were then sent to the Acuities’ test, where I helped translate with a fellow named Nate when patients would go into detail about what there issues were. If there vision was 20/40 or higher, we would send them onto the Focometer with Lidia and Jack or Richard, before testing what lenses worked the best. If they just needed reading glasses, we would send them directly to Sylvia or Amanda who would help them find what they needed. David and Amanda were the experts in the lenses’ section, where they’d send patients away with clear vision in their “Harry Potter” style lenses.
Most patients went away ecstatic to be able to see clearly for the first time in their life. Some came hoping for a miracle. One lady named Sidey recently had laser surgery that went wrong, leaving her legally blind. A second surgery had been done to try and correct her vision with no luck. She was also a diabetic with high blood sugar. We had to send away anyone with high blood sugar, since it affects the vision so drastically. We asked Pastors Wilbur and Adolfo pray for her, to offer her some reassurance, since her issues were beyond the power of the vision team. There were also several young kids whose teachers had recommended they get their vision checked when they complained of seeing letters backwards. When their vision on the Acuities’ test checked out to be 20/20 or 20/25, we suggested they might want to talk with a counselor about the possibility of dyslexia or another learning disability. We are learning that there isn’t proper education on learning disabilities in the school system. Rather than giving special attention to children that have trouble learning, many children are held back in school year after year.
Also during the week, Brett and I took turns tutoring our regular students: Katherine, Jenny, and Adiel. They have exams coming up next week, so we are trying to bump up the frequency with which we help them. The week before last, we visited the two high schools where our students attend school, Liceo and COTAI. We are trying to organize a way to know their curriculum ahead of time, so we can be properly prepared before our tutoring sessions. The counselor at Liceo was extremely helpful. In fact, she called in most of their teachers over the loud speaker out of their classes, so we could talk to them. The counselor at COTAI was more protective of the students, and she didn’t want us talking directly to the teachers. Instead, we are trying to send messages to the teachers through the student. This may in fact be a better system, so the teacher and student have more direct communication.
I have been having great difficulty working with one student in particular, Jenny. She has no desire to study or listen to my suggestions or my attempts to help her learn. She just wants me to tell her the answers rather than work towards understanding the material on her own. I had to walk out of one session after she had called me a “bruja” or “witch” and chose to play with a little video game rather than work with me. I know the times I am able to work with her is when the grace of God gives me patience to try and get to know her rather than force her to work on something against her will.
Brett has been continuing to visit the boys at the orphanage in Linda Vista. Last week Brett helped them plant sunflower seeds and taught them the Parable of the Sower from Luke 8.
The women’s bible study and sewing class has died down until the dry season returns. Dona Theresa, who was teaching the sewing portion, preferred not to travel during the rainy season. I am still continuing with the English class, where we try and pray or incorporate a bible study into the class. We have been meeting at a home in Linda Vista, since Brett and I returned from the states. We now have refreshments after every class, which is quite a lovely time to get to know the ladies in the class better. Jenny and her mother are also in the class, so hopefully the better I get to know them, the quicker we will get to the heart of why Jenny is not passing in school.
This coming week, there is a team from the US that will be conducting Veterinary and Medical Clinics. We may spend some time translating, but Monday we are making a trip to Atenas, three hours from the camp. We will be meeting with a fellow from EMI, Engineering Missions International, to discuss the possibility of doing some architectural work with them. Since the camp currently has no need for our architectural services at this time, we thought working with EMI would be a good opportunity to keep us in practice with architecture. I hope to eventually get licensed in Costa Rica, so working with this group might open some doors there. They currently have projects in Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala. We have been invited to participate in a project trip in Mexico for a week in September, but we are still praying as to whether we should attend or not.
We are also trying to get a land telephone line, so as to not have to stand out in the yard, under the tree on one leg while grabbing a branch with one hand and holding the phone in our hand with the other, in order to make phone calls from our house. All attempts have failed thus far, so maybe God is trying to keep us separated to some degree too keep us focused on the mission here and on our marriage. Again, I have to pray to not get discouraged by such mild inconveniences. This is just another part of life on the mission field. God gives us exactly what we need, all the time.

La epoca de la lluvia...The rainy season

Hello...

We are back in Costa Rica after a nice visit with our families, friends and supporters. During our mandatory exit from the country we visited three states SC, NC, and WV. It seemed like everywhere we went people were having babies, adding to their families. It was great fun getting to know all their new faces. If we missed you on this trip we hope we´ll catch you on the next one.

The rain has started here and probably will not stop for a couple months. In the last five days I would estimate that we have received about twelve inches, which is too many centimeters to count.

We hit the ground running and have been working at the camp, tutoring, and catching up on all the events of the three weeks that we were away. The summer crop of VIM teams has begun to arrive, I think there will be 12 weeklong teams just in the months of June and July. We are slated to join them working in the North near the border and closer to the camp on projects such as church building, bible studies, well digging-drilling, and medical-vision missions. We will be translating, swinging hammers and perhaps even working with doctors and patients.

We imagine this time period will be substantually different from our routine to date, as we will be traveling with some of the teams and away from the camp more often as well as participating in mission work in different aspects.

Brooke and I have additionally made contact with EMI, an engineering and architecture mission, located in CR where we may work as architects in the mission field. They work throughout Central America and we could potentially produce plans for projects in multiple countries, should this door open to us.

To further add to our repsonsibilities, Brooke just this morning spoke with a teacher at the local elemnetary school about teaching English to 4th through 6th graders. It is something at which I think that she would excel and we are looking forward to more news on this front.

Our time seems to be more and more full with projects and plans, we pray each day that they are God´s plans for us and we appreciate all your prayers and support. More soon. Love Brett and Brooke

Linda Vista Ministry

I am just now getting around to posting the blogs that I´ve been saving since we arrived, so this is the reason why the post dates below don´t match the dates marked in the titles. I´d now like to update you on some of the personal mission activities we´ve been working on over the past few weeks.

First, we have been tutoring two high school kids from Linda Vista. Linda Vista is the nearby town where I first got the call to learn Spanish, after forming a relationship with a family there for whom we helped build a house. There is a huge issue in Linda Vista where children don´t continue their education after the 6th grade because their families can´t afford the transportation costs into town, where all the high schools are located. Either that, or the families don’t value education and don´t make their kids go if they don´t want to. It is quite common for kids to start working in the sugar cane or coffee fields at the age of 12, to help support their families.

Mary Woods, who directs the camps activities with her husband Marion, is on the Board of a scholarship program in Linda Vista. The program pays for bus tickets into town, as well as uniforms and books if the family needs additional assistance. The family must pay for the first trimester of the 7th grade to prove they are invested in their child’s education as well as to prove the child can maintain an average above 70. Right now the Association supports 5 kids. One of the girls has a probationary status due to her poor grades in the 7th grade. They are allowing her to receive the scholarship on the condition that she receives tutoring, which is where Brett and I have stepped in. This is a huge blessing as well as a huge challenge to us both, but we feel this opportunity has allowed us to slowly make our way into this community.

Another kid is in the 7th grade, so he is not yet eligible to receive the scholarship, but his mother wants him to be prepared to receive the scholarship once he can. The primary school at Linda Vista does not properly prepare their students for high school. If families do decide to send their kids to high school, the transition from primary to secondary school is extremely tough. In primary school, students only stay at school for 3 or 4 hours a day. In high school, the day lasts for 8 or 9 hours. Also, they have to leave their homes at 5:30 am to catch the bus and don´t return home until 6pm. These new, grueling hours make the success rate for the scholarship program quite difficult. We have to force ourselves to stop complaining about the way things are done here, and give it all to God. Our job is to show these children God´s love, teach them about Jesus Christ, and tutor them when we can. We often wish we could change Costa Rica, but I believe Costa Rica is changing us.

Next, we are starting bible studies in Linda Vista for women on Wednesdays, for men on Fridays at 6pm, and for boys in an orphanage on Fridays at 4pm. A few months ago, a team from the language school did a door to door ministry, and 13 families accepted Christ. Mary suggested we start with these families to start the bible studies. We knocked on the doors of 7 of these families, and invited them to the bible studies. I had my first bible study yesterday with the women, and 3 of them came. I had to remind myself that 2 or 3 gathered in Christ´s name is sufficient for Him. We studied Judges 4 and 5, and focused on Deborah as an important woman of faith in the bible. I was mostly nervous, though, and stumbled through my Spanish as I tried to share with them all the information I had collected in the various commentaries I studied. I shared this with a woman who is with the group from Florida that is now at the camp. She suggested that maybe I should focus more on sharing my heart with them, rather than regurgitating Biblical facts. So this is what I shall do next time.

Despite my weaknesses as a leader, I know that relationships are being formed, and we are coming up with more ideas to bring more women to the study. Lidiath, the hostess that so kindly allowed us to hold the study at her house, is the mother of a deaf girl named Esmeralda. When Esmeralda was spelling her name for me in sign language, she told me her main characteristic was her long blonde hair. She asked what my main characteristic was, and I said that my name means ¨little river¨ in English, or ¨arroyo or quebrada¨ in Spanish. So we spent a lot of time learning different words in sign language, and I of course, sang her the 2 songs I know in sign language, ¨Wind beneath my Wings¨ by Bette Midler and ¨All day all nigh, angels watching over me my Lord.¨ Lidiath told me people have always told her that she needs to teach them sign language, so the people in the community can better communicate with Esmeralda. We are going to add a sign language lesson to our study every Wednesday.

After the study, God ¨wooed¨ me as I recently learned in the Sacred Romance by John Eldridge. Esmeralda and 2 other little girls from Linda Vista showed me the most beautiful point in all of Linda Vista, which I believe is the reason Linda Vista, or ¨Beautiful View¨ has its name. It is at the end of the road, at the top of the hill in Linda Vista, and looks out over Ciudad Quesada and Volcano Arenal. They told me it was public property, kind of like a park for the residents, but we had to climb a tree and jump a barbed wire fence to get there, so I somehow doubt it´s public. We played hide and seek, rolled down the hill, and spun like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music until sunset.

God is good. All the time.

_Brooke

March 17-24, Semana Santa

The week before Easter is known as Semana Santa, or Holy Week, in Latin America. Most Costa Ricans take the week off and most businesses are closed from Thursday until Sunday. In the center of towns, the Catholic Church hosts processions in the streets, to remember the events leading up to Jesus’ death and Resurrection. The people dress up as Biblical Figures and carry huge statues of Mary, Jesus, and the disciples. We didn’t get to witness any processions in Ciudad Quesada this year, but we witnessed a few in San Jose last year.

The beginning of the week involved much preparation and cabin cleaning for a group from a Pentecostal Church in San Jose, who hosted a youth retreat from Thursday to Saturday. Brett was able to spend most of his time in the woodshop, since there were no groups from the States. He built two twin beds for the spare bedroom in the guesthouse. I (Brooke) helped prepare the Souvenir Shop for the teams that were in Coquital and Los Angeles. While there were no teams staying at the camp, there were however, three teams from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas working on churches in other parts of Costa Rica. A few of the camp’s employees, Juanita, Pedro, and Giovani, went to Coquital to help the Texas team during Semana Santa. The teams from Texas and Kansas came to the camp to visit the Souvenir Shop on their way back down to San Jose to catch their flight. The camp sells crafts made from Costa Ricans in the shop to help support the local artist community. Mary and Marion would eventually like Brett to make some items for the souvenir shop, so as to be an addition source of financial funding to the camp´s needs.

March 21 was my dad’s birthday, and I spent all afternoon Monday making him a card, in an effort to get it in the mail, so it could at least arrive close to his birthday. I have never been very good with timing. But despite my efforts, I didn’t make it to the post office until Wednesday afternoon, and it was already closed for Semana Santa. Perhaps the next birthday that comes up, I can try and plan a month in advance, to ensure my card arrives prior. I talked to him on his birthday, though, and I was pleased to hear he had taken the day off, which I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of him doing such a thing. Looks to me like someone must be teaching him to relax a little these days.

On Easter, we attended church at Santa Rosa, and the reading was from Daniel 9. The sermon focused on Daniel as a great intercessor, who prayed for those too weak to pray, and therefore told us we have the same calling, to not only pray for ourselves, but for those around us who need prayer. Giovanny then related the story to how Jesus is the great Intercessor, “la Puente por Dios“, the bridge to God. Through His life, His death, and His Resurrection, He became our bridge to knowing God in the intimate way He always intended.

Celebrating Easter in a different country is so different because we aren’t consumed by Easter bunnies and eggs and candy and chocolate. Also the fact that the sermon wasn’t focused primarily on the Resurrection story was surprising..

The rest of the day, I had to rest since I picked up a cold and rested, and Brett helped Mary clean cabins at the camp to help prepare for a group of Mennonites that were to arrive on Tuesday, March 25.

March 8-16, 2008; Athens and Language School Teams

During the weekend of March 8-11, the camp hosted a team from the Language Institute in San Jose, a.k.a. ILE (Instituto de Lengua Espanola), where Brooke learned Spanish the previous year. ILE is primarily for missionaries headed to various countries in Latin America. Every trimester since Steve Semler was a student at ILE, a group from the school has come on a weekend-long mission trip. There is usually so much to learn from this group of career missionaries. This year they hosted a Vacation Bible School at the school in Linda Vista and included kids form the local orphanage as well as had a construction team at the new cabin at the camp. Lalo from the La Carpio mission brought 5 kids from his 12 year old soccer team to participate in the mission trip. This was the second time these boys had been on a mission trip to San Carlos. A few months earlier, they worked with the kids from the Linda Vista orphanage and formed an amazing relationship with these boys. Kids can relate better to other kids, right?

On Saturday, a team from Athens, GA arrived at the camp. We didn’t hook up with them until the Language School left on Sunday. We attended church with them on Sunday in Santa Rosa, and were asked to help translate the sermon. This was the first time we had done such a thing, but I think we made a good team. When Brooke lacked understanding, Brett was able to jump in and vice versa… When neither of us understood, Pastor Giovanny tried to dumb it down into the simplest form of the Spanish language as possible.

Throughout the week, the team continued on construction projects in Santa Rosa and the new cabin. They also started a house across the street from the camp for Pedro, Juanita and their kids, Kimberly and Beto.

An introduction to some other missionaries and employees at the camp:

Pedro and Juanita are both missionaries and employees at the camp. As missionaries, Pedro has a calling to preach, which he was involved in when they lived in Los Chiles, and Juanita has a clown ministry, which she has started in El Mirador since they moved to the camp. As employees, Pedro is the construction foreman for all the construction projects for the camp (the towns with buildings under construction include: Santa Rosa, the New Cabin at the camp, Los Chiles, Pital, and Coquital). Juanita cooks her delicious Costa Rican meals for the teams as well as helps Mary take care of her father at times.

Mary’s 94 year old father has lived with them at the camp since 2002. Two years ago, another missionary, Peggy, came to live in Costa Rica, to help Mary take care of Papa. Peggy’s parents founded the Central Rural Metodista in the 1950s, so Peggy grew up at the camp, and now is a huge help with her bilingual and caretaking gifts.

Wolf, or in Spanish, Lobo, came to stay at the camp for 6 weeks to help with the mission teams. I believe his specialty was working in construction, but God changed that his second week at the camp, when he twisted his knee. So he was forced to take it easy and relax a bit, something I don’t believe he was used to doing. By the time the Athens group came, he restored enough strength to help build some cabinets at the home of the new pastor in El Mirador. We were blessed to have him as a dinner companion during the weeks that teams weren’t here.

The Athens group had vacation bible school at the church in Santa Rosa and the school in San Rafael. Pastor Martha broke up the lesson into 3 days with 3 rotating groups each day. The first lesson taught about Jesus as a child, when his family left Him in the temple (Luke 2:41-52). The 3 stations were the kitchen station, where the kids were served healthy snacks to teach that Jesus ate healthy food, the drama station, where the kids acted out the story, so as to visualize the events of Mary, Joseph, and Mary traveling to Jerusalem, leaving Jesus behind, and then returning to find him preaching in the temple at such a young age. The last station was the craft station, where the kids made cards for the people they appreciated in their life, such as their teachers, their pastors, or their parents. I (Brooke) was blessed to receive a card from a few of the kids, one of them thanked me for all I had done for them, which was quite special to see their appreciation after having both worked with them in bible school and painted their classrooms. The next day, the kids were taught about how Jesus healed people in Matthew 8, and the final day taught about the Feeding of the 5000, (Luke 9:10-17). When Martha was explaining the lesson for the day to Giovanny, she humorously mixed up her Spanish to say that Jesus ate everybody ¨Jesus comió todo¨, instead of ¨Jesus dió comida a todo¨ or ¨Jesus fed everybody.¨ Giovanny was sure to preach that lesson to ensure the kids understood that Jesus was not into eating his followers.

I (Brooke)put a lot of stress on myself trying to make everything perfect for the Athens team, trying to organize their day, where they were going, who was going where, etc…There was a lot of learning that I don’t need to plan so much. The whole mystery of the mission field was what attracted me to it in the first place, because God is always the leader, and the day is always filled with surprises. But there I went anyway, acting the gringa that I am, trying to organize and pre-plan everything. I was left exhausted by the end of the week, but the Athens group recognized this. They were so kind to show Mary, Marion, Wolf, Brett, and I the love of Jesus by washing our feet during their last devotional. It is hard to be served when it is so engrained in me that I should serve others. But this is what Jesus does always to restore us, if we just let Him.

March 1-7, 2008; Getting Settled

After the Charleston team left, we moved into our new home just up the road from the camp. It is the future retirement home of Pastor Jerry Russell from Maryville, TN. Jerry has been bringing teams from his church to the camp since the early 1990s. We were so blessed to discover we had housing arranged for us when we arrived, thanks to Jerry, who also is involved with the nonprofit organization, Samaritan Hands, through whom we send the majority of our financial support.

Amanda from Rockville stayed with us until Wednesday of this week and continued working as a missionary on the construction sites at the new cabin and in Santa Rosa. Amanda will be returning to the camp in May to search her heart to see if this is the place where God might be calling her next. She feels the same peace and sense of calling here that I felt when I first arrived in Costa Rica over 3 years ago. Please pray for her as she searches her heart for her next step on her walk with Christ.

Part of Brooke’s responsibilities this week was to help clean cabins to prepare for the next group of teams, as well as tend to some dogs. The camp is an animal shelter to a certain degree, in that locals drop their dogs off when they don’t want them anymore. This means the camp has to care for about 15 dogs at any one time. A girl from the Charleston group adopted one of the dogs, known as Mamacíta, but she had to get all the dog’s rabies shots and certificate of good health a month before she could take it to the U.S.. Luckily, there is no quarantine once the dog arrives in the States, so after all the paperwork in Costa Rica is done, the process is fairly simple. If Brett and I decide to come home in May to visit, we will bring Mama with us, and she will be a bilingual, US citizen. Brooke had to get Mama’s rabies shots as well as take another dog, Sunshine, to get medication for mange. Since we have been at the camp, 3 puppies have been abandoned at the camp. Thanks to God, we found homes for all 3 of them. Although they do bring a lot of joy to the camp, it is a weekly task to find homes and properly care for these dogs.

We have been going to church in Santa Rosa, and Pastor Giovanny has already put us in his books as members, so I guess God has already provided us with a church home here!

Feb 23-March 1, 2008; First week at the CRM

We met up with our home mission team from Charleston, SC at the airport on Saturday, Feb 23, so as to ride up to the Central Rural Metodista with them. This is a team led by Rockville Church on Wadmalaw Island, just outside Charleston. Brooke started going on mission trips with them to the Central Rural Metodista in 2005, and Brett started in 2006. The team has participants that represent several different churches every year. Trinity UMC, our home church, was connected with them via Steve Semler. Steve is another missionary at the Central Rural Metodista whose home church is Trinity, and he got the call to become a missionary in Costa Rica through his relationship with Micah LaRoche with the Rockville group. Steve was a fisherman before he became a missionary, and worked on Micah’s dock at Cherry Point Seafood on Wadmalaw. You can check out more information about Steve by visiting the Central Rural Metodista website.

Our first week at the camp, we participated in the Rockville team’s mission trip as ordinary short term missionaries would. The group always starts out the week by going to church on Sunday at one of the local churches. This year we went to Santa Rosa, where the cam,p with the help of teams from the US, is in the process of building a parsonage for the pastor, Giovanny, and his family. Later in the day on Sunday, we took a soak at the Hot Springs just up the road from the camp, where you can relax and get a good body pruning for a group rate of $5 per person.

The projects we participated in throughout the week were construction projects in Santa Rosa and a new cabin at the camp, painting in El Mirador ( precario close to the camp), and at a school in a village nearby called San Rafael. We later had vacation bible schools for the students at the school in San Rafael and at a school in Linda Vista. Since the national religion of Costa Rica is Catholic, schools have no problems hosting bible studies during the school day.

The week the Charleston crew was here, I (Brooke) got news that my Uncle Tom, also known as Uncle Moo, had passed away. I wanted to go home to be with my family and mourn and reminisce. But we had just gotten here, and I somehow knew that I was to stay here. The support from my husband and the Charleston crew was just what I needed, so I knew God had planned it that way, that when he died, I’d be surrounded by my family in Christ. My cousin Katie sent me the eulogy my Uncle Puc wrote for Moo. He ended the eulogy with the Robert Frost poem that ends, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the road less traveled, and that made all the difference.” I had just read that poem a few weeks before we came to Costa Rica, and it gave me the hope and encouragement I needed to come with my husband and leave my family, friends, job and security back home. Brett and I visited Moo a few weeks before we came to Costa Rica, and Moo gave us the encouragement we needed to come here as well. He was in full support of following a dream, a Calling from God, to live life to its fullest, and not just according to what seems safe. Moo was one of the people in my life that God used to speak to me. He not only was my uncle, but also my Godfather, a title which I seldom acknowledged growing up. But looking back, and remembering all the times I spent with him over the years, God was always speaking through him to me, showing his unconditional love.

Feb 21-23, 2008: San Jose

We arrived in Costa Rica on Thursday, Feb 21, and stayed at a mission house in San Jose known as the AMCA house. This mission house is sponsored by Latin American Mission and houses mission teams, provides a place for meetings and Bible Studies, as well as hosts English Classes for Costa Ricans. Since Brooke taught English here last year, we had a connection with this place, and therefore decided to start our journey here.

While in San Jose, we visited friends we had connected with the previous year, such as our host family and former tutor. We also caught up with a couple of the missions we were involved with in La Carpio and Casa Café.

La Carpio is a precario, or shanty town, which is known as one of the most dangerous squaters villages in San Jose. Brooke helped establish a kids ministry with fellow language school students back in the Fall of 2006. There are still groups from the language school that bring Christ’s love to these kids every Thursday. The missionaries that run a church/community center in the area of La Carpio known as La Cueva, or “the cave,” are Steve “Lalo” Edwards and Antonio Yervis with Community of Faith Mission based out of Houston, TX. Throughout the year they coach a championship soccer team for a little league of 12 year olds as well as a team for high school kids. They also host short term medical missions with their sponsoring churches from Texas.

We also caught up with Keith Britton, a missionary with Commission to Every Nation. Brett worked with him last year in another precario in San Jose known as Los Guido and also at a men’s rehab center known as casa C.A.F.E., which stands for “Casa de Amor, Fe, y Esperanza,” or “house of love, faith, and hope.” We visited C.A.F.E. to see about helping them design a bathroom addition. Brett had helped design and oversee part of the construction of a bedroom addition last year, when there were about 24 residents at the center. Now there are only 4 residents because of some issues with their facilities…they have to build more bathrooms in order to host more residents.